Because I had migraines so young, my tolerance for pain was very high. I often got very sick and didn’t notice, just grateful it was anything but a headache. At my workaholism/codependence peak around age thirty, I was forced to go to a rheumatologist because I developed a condition called costochondritis, which is an inflammation in your cartilage where the ribs and breastbone come together. I know! Yucky! I am warning you: Do not look this up on the Internet because you will think you have it, and chances are, you don’t. The causes of costochondritis are many, but my doctor told me mine was from stress and possibly from having pneumonia and not treating it quickly enough. It’s the kind of thing people get if they either don’t value themselves enough to go to the doctor or were alive during the Civil War. Yes, I felt a weird pain in my chest, but as you well know, I’m codependent, so if someone else had this health problem, I’d learn to fly a helicopter in order to fly them to the closest hospital, but if I had the health problem, getting it treated just seemed like a waste of time. I mean, I wouldn’t want to burden a doctor with my medical problems in the middle of his busy workday.
The condition transpired after I had just come back from a stressful vacation with a boyfriend I had been fighting with for seven days. I was mentally and emotionally drained, and more in love than ever. When we landed after ten days of improvising a sequel to The War of the Roses in a hut by a beach, we got back and had a crazy guilt/shame spiral attachment bond, so I had a hard time leaving, even though I had to turn in the finale script of a TV show the next day. I had planned on writing it over the break while relaxing by a pool, but there wasn’t much time between crying and throwing the hotel Bible across the room. I didn’t want him to feel abandoned, which was of course me projecting my fear of abandonment, so I waited until he fell asleep before going home.
I stayed up all night writing the episode. I know that because I’m an insomniac, staying up all night to work may seem like it makes a lot of sense for me, but oddly, working through the night isn’t my style. My insomnia is more about worrying over things I can’t control than actually being productive.
By some weird miracle, I managed to bang out a version of the script. The next day I went into work and noticed that inhaling was painful. Again, as a woman, I find a lot of mundane involuntary behaviors are painful for no reason at all: sitting at a desk, having sex, having boobs, having a uterus . . . But breathing? This was a new one. I walked into the writers’ room, greeted by eight hilarious comedy writers. King idiot, dear friend, and hilarious person Dan Levy immediately made me laugh, and it felt like a wrecking ball went through my chest. Laughing and inhaling felt like I was getting stabbed by a Ninja star, so I told the writers I’d be fine as long as they just didn’t make me laugh all day. In a comedy writers’ room. Where we write comedy. Where the writers are funny. Where their job is to pitch jokes. And make people laugh. Telling comedy writers they can’t be funny is like telling white people they can’t wear plaid.
A writer pulled me aside and urged me to go to the doctor. I was annoyed by her concern because receiving love made me very uncomfortable at the time, but this was one instance where my codependence worked to my advantage because I ended up going to the doctor solely because I didn’t want her to be mad at me or feel rejected.
The doctor I went to referred me to a rheumatologist. I didn’t really know what that was, but the plethora of vowels in the title made me very nervous. This specialist explained to me not only that I had this rare condition called costochondritis, which sounded like a dorky dad joke about someone who can’t stop going to Costco, but also that I had a condition called hypermobility. From what I gathered and Googled, it’s a genetic bummer that results from the underwhelming DNA of Western Europeans. It causes joints to move beyond the healthy range of a joint, which you’d think just makes me super flexible and amazing in bed, but it actually couldn’t be less sexy. Us hypermobility sufferers put too much pressure on our joints, which accumulates over time and eventually causes something called “noncollision injuries.” You’ve all heard a story similar to the one where someone fifty-five or so throws his back out doing something as simple as sneezing. It’s basically the bone version of the straw breaking the camel’s back, except you can actually break your back, maybe not with a straw, but certainly by reaching for one.
I already feel it happening: a couple years ago I strained my neck making a point in an argument. A guy I was dating said something incredibly patronizing and I cocked my neck forward like a petulant pigeon. My head was stuck in that position for three days. I looked like that girl cocking her head who became famous as a meme and then sued Instagram and won. And who is now probably going to sue me and win. Congrats, girl.
The doctor told me that because of my hypermobility, which is actually very common and often under-and misdiagnosed, I was walking incorrectly. To find out at thirty that you don’t know how to walk is very annoying information to have to process. I suck at relationships, I suck at sleeping, I suck at eating, I suck at liking myself, I suck at managing my time, and now I suck at walking? The one thing I thought I had in the bag. He said that people with hypermobility walk with their joints instead of their muscles, so the joints are absorbing all the impact the muscles should be absorbing. But I didn’t really have many muscles. Once I realized that, I was struck by a miraculous revelation.
“Is this why my butt is so flat?!” I asked.
The doc was pretty stunned that this was my takeaway, given how much harm this condition can do over time, but he also affirmed my theory. Basically, yes, it was. I was walking with my ankles, knees, and hips instead of my calves, quads, and glutes, which as far as I was concerned was stopping me from having the ass of Serena Williams. Well, honestly, fifty other things are also stopping me, but this was the one I would like to blame.
“So, what do I take for it?” I asked.
“You mean, what do you do for it?”
“I don’t follow.”
Nettled but not surprised by my desire for a quick fix, Dr. Vowels told me I had to relearn how to walk. I had to go to corrective Pilates three times a week to train my body to engage my muscles and disengage my joints. Up until this point I had only been encouraged to figure out how to be engaged to a man, not how to engage my stupid core. I went to one corrective Pilates session and almost had a nervous breakdown from boredom. I never went back, but this time I did pay.